The Musings Of Jeff Chandler

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writing

For those who follow me on the Tavern, you may have noticed a substantial drought in the articles I’ve written and published since late last year, outside of WordPress Weekly.

In the last 4-6 months, I’ve been in a pretty low place emotionally, mentally, and at times, physically.

The Tavern started out as a fan site, a blog all about WordPress. A place to discuss what was happening. A place to help each other out. In the past five years, the Tavern has grown from a hobbyist blog to a place of professional journalism thanks in large part to Sarah Gooding. Sarah has done an amazing job, has a great work ethic, high standards, and has taken the site to new heights.

I have not faired well in the Tavern’s transition. In the past few years, I’ve struggled to find a place, maintain my written voice, and become more of a traditional journalist. I’ve admitted in the past that I’m not a good journalist and I still feel that way. I enjoy writing how I feel, what I think, and evolving the narrative over time. But with the Tavern becoming a more serious and professional industry source of news, that kind of writing is getting phased out.

The way in which I write stories on the Tavern now a days is akin to Ben Stein’s voice. Dry, boring, accurate, no personality, that I sometimes wonder if it could be accomplished better by AI.

One thing that I’m proud and that I’m good at is WordPress Weekly or podcasting in general. I get to be myself on the show and I enjoy talking to people about WordPress and learning about other’s experiences. I’ve had a few pep talks lately and I’m going to try expanding my reach and produce three different WordPress podcasts a week.

The first will be a daily podcast that covers the pressing topics of the day.

The second is WordPress Weekly

The third will be a Friday night podcast where for one hour, I’ll invite members of the community to join me on a public Google Hangout to talk about whatever WordPress issues they want. I’ll literally be giving people in the WordPress community a chance to have their voices heard.

I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to expand the Tavern listener base while at the same time, trying to bring back some more community elements to the site. Most importantly, what these shows will do is give me a sense of purpose. Let me tell you, when you feel like you have no purpose, no sense of well being at work, it’s draining.

So, that’s what I’m working on. I realize there are already plenty of other podcasts that cover the things I mentioned above, but only one of them involves me. I’ll still be writing but I’m hoping that the podcasts provide enough time for the site to be redesigned and install some sort of community software such as bbPress. This way, I can move into community management or something and not just a writer.

This morning, I read an interesting post from Justin Tadlock on what he regrets the most about blogging.

What I regret the most is that I didn’t write enough about my life.

During my college years, I wrote extensively about my day-to-day existence. There were numerous experiences that I left out.

My blog painted a picture of who I was.

Going forward, I want to record more about me. Or, at the very least, record my thoughts on things. That may include writings on social issues, politics, or pop culture. I’m not entirely sure.

I feel the same way about my blog. It mostly sits here dormant while I submit things to Facebook and Twitter. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to publish more things here but rather, I’ve been keeping a lot of stuff inside and haven’t been able to channel what’s in my head to virtual paper. I’m also scared about what might happen if I open up about some of the things I want to discuss.

I need to recommit to this space of mine. A space where I can write and publish practically about anything I want. I need to get back to a daily writing grind and just let the words flow like the good ole days.

Thanks for the motivation Justin. Now all I gotta do is follow through.

I don’t know if it’s one thing or a combination of factors, but when it comes to writing about WordPress, I’m really struggling to get my groove back. Things felt so much easier back in 2009-2011 when I was publishing multiple stories per day without breaking a sweat. Today, it’s tough for me to get 1-2 articles written let alone three or four.

If I think back to the environment I was in during that time, I worked the late night shift at the store. I would come home, maybe write an article or two or get up late, and write some more. I was in tune with most of what was going on in the WordPress ecosystem. I’d read my FeedReader and interact with people throughout the day via Twitter. Each day felt like I was one step closer to accomplishing something which at the time, was turning the site into my full-time job.

I was focused, lived with my parents, and spent most of my time in my room and just wrote about whatever interested me regarding WordPress. I’m trying to figure out what happened to that Jeffro. If you find him, can you tell him to go home as he’s late for dinner?

Today, I spend a lot of time sitting in this chair, TRYING to write about whatever interests me in WordPress and it’s not working. My reading to writing ratio is way off. I spend a lot more time writing than I do reading, I’m almost certain it’s one of the factors plaguing me. I rarely look at my FeedReader and when I do read, I’m skimming to hurry up and write a post. Posts which have in my opinion, been total crap. I feel like that guy who had a good thing going, retired, came out of retirement and could never repeat the success that made him who he is.

Here are a couple of instances where I’ve had good days.

I wake up with post ideas already in mind, I have my day set and all I need to do is write about those topics instead of finding things to write about.

I work remotely at my favorite spot. When I work from the MacbookPro, I’m forced to stay focused on the task at hand since I only have one screen. It takes longer to write the content but I’m generally more focused.

I’m able to get my work done and spend time with my wife.

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are my best days

Things I definitely need to change.

I need to get a membership to the local rec center and actually perform physical activity. I keep telling myself that not only will this give me the opportunity to work out, but I’ll be able to listen to podcasts again, something I’ve missed since quitting my previous job.

I need to lose weight. The pounds keep piling on and I’ve done little to stop the madness.

I need to cut down my beer and pop intake, two things which I know are significant contributors to the decline of my health.

Things I’m still struggling with being a full-time distributed worker.

Knowing how or when to end the work day. I’m spending a lot of time on the computer but not having a lot to show for it. It doesn’t help that on days where I’ve had a hard time producing content, it almost forces me to keep working until I do.

Discipline.

The quality of the output I’m producing needs to be better.

Getting at least one if not two good posts published every day. WHY IS THIS SO HARD NOW?

Thursdays and Fridays are my worst days of the week. I’m almost certain I know why and I’m going to change it.

No one needs to tell me I’m doing a bad job, I’m pretty good at discovering that on my own. Besides, as a distributed employee, I’m my own boss and my own worst critic. What I need is encouragement for when I’ve done a good job. Hell, I don’t even know what constitutes a good job. It’s something I’ve made up rarely achieve.

Just like iteration is the continuous improvement of something, I need to keep iterating my process, routine, and attitude. Changes need to happen because I certainly don’t have the winning combination right now.

It’s been a few days since I’ve received some advice and a good talking too from many friends about my job and opportunity that lies before me. Since those conversations, I’ve had a more positive approach and attitude which seems to have resulted in better output.

Over the course of this week, I’ve done a good job of being in the thick of things when it comes to WordPress. This is where I excel and do my best work. I’ve been flying solo but it hasn’t affected me as much as I thought it would. In many ways, my experience at work this week is reminiscent of years past. I’ve been in a great groove, I just hope I don’t get an email that derails the train.

English is my native language but I’ll be damned if I know the intricacies of writing it, let alone speaking it. I’ve learned a few things along the way but there is a part of me that avoids trying to learn the proper way of writing the English language. Knowing verbs, adjectives, possessive this and that. All the stuff I’ve forgotten from the days of school. I’ve relied on the spell checker in the browser and occasionally, I’ll Google the definition of a word before I use it.

In the past few years of publishing content, I’ve been able to avoid people intent on making sure every grammatical mistake on the web is fixed. Sure, I’ve had the comments where people suggest other words or corrected a typo or two and I’m thankful for those. The thing is, if you can understand the point I’m trying to get across, what’s with all this other crap surrounding the point.

In certain situations, I can see how punctuation, grammar, and the like are important for people to understand points I’m making. The ability to publish things I write the way I speak is fulfilling. But correcting this mistake, that mistake, and seemingly never being able to write something that doesn’t require at least one correction, sucks. Why do I have to subject myself to those rules? I’d like to tell the English language to kiss my ass and let me do things my way.

I guess I should just hunker down and read English for dummies and try to at least obtain some semblance of writing skills. After all, if I can stop making those writing mistakes, that’s less I have to bitch about! By the way, style guides are books used to put people to sleep.

Those of you who have been following my progress as a writer know that at about this time last year, I had a great opportunity come my way thanks to a referral from a friend where I was offered to write for Performancing.com. The pay was great compared to anything I’ve ever seen before. However, it didn’t take long to realize what I had stepped into. After working with Performancing for two to three months, I started to come up with ideas and ways to reinvigorate the brand/community/site. What I proposed was a radical change to the way things were done. I was filled with ideas and motivation to turn things around. My ideas were noted and passed around but progress was slow. While a redesign for Performancing has taken place on a platform that at some point the site will be migrated to, the site is where it was a year ago.

I wish I could just publish the email I sent this morning which clearly illustrates my frustration with the site but I don’t feel that would be in my best interest. However, I feel I can post a quote from it.

Ultimately, Performancing.com in its current iteration is a bottomless pit. Or an empty auditorium. I’ve been waiting for someone to bust my ass for lack of production or lack of enthusiasm but I’d pay to see anyone get enthused about this site now adays. Then I’d have to wonder what kind of shrooms they ate.

In my mind, Performancing would turn into an awesome site if there was a team of people writing for the domain. Each one of these people were so called experts are at least, in the know for a particular CMS/publishing platform of their choice. So, I’d fit the bill with WordPress, someone could do MovableType, someone could do Joomla, etc. Sure, it sounds like CMS Wire, but they do newsy posts. Our goal would be to help bloggers succeed using these publishing systems and doing this as a team. Think about the mini competitions we could have with one platform versus another. I think their would be endless content creation opportunities and the audience I think would love it. Top it with a forum, a podcast, maybe some screencasts, and wow, what a helluva resource for bloggers of all types. That’s what I would turn Performancing into if I had the cash and know how.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned from Performancing.com, especially regarding managing a site. Because the site has exchanged hands at points in the past, has cared more about content generation versus all other aspects of the domain, and no continuous maintenance, we now have a site with a huge six year archive, a bunch of spam user accounts, comments, and blog posts, not to mention stuff on the built in forums all of which make it difficult to do anything with the site. It’s one of those situations where I’d like to just reformat and start over but you can’t because the archive is the only saving grace of the domain.

I know they are currently in the migration phases to move from Drupal to WordPress and that will most likely solve half or more of the problems associated with the site, just as long as most of the crap is not migrated over as well.

It doesn’t matter how much you pay me to write on your site. If 90% of comments are junk, I have no idea if someone links to the post or not, I’m stuck with a platform that sucks, there is little to no way to build community or loyalty around the site, eventually the writer is going to burn out and wonder what the hell is he doing wasting his time going upstream rather than with the flow. I’ll no doubt miss the $1,000.00 a month in pay but being able to bust my ass and reap the rewards which is more than just cash coming in is worth more to me in the long run.

Those of you who have been following my progress as a writer know that at about this time last year, I had a great opportunity come my way thanks to a referral from a friend where I was offered to write for Performancing.com. The pay was great compared to anything I’ve ever seen before. However, it didn’t take long to realize what I had stepped into. After working with Performancing for two to three months, I started to come up with ideas and ways to reinvigorate the brand/community/site. What I proposed was a radical change to the way things were done. I was filled with ideas and motivation to turn things around. My ideas were noted and passed around but progress was slow. While a redesign for Performancing has taken place on a platform that at some point the site will be migrated to, the site is where it was a year ago.

I wish I could just publish the email I sent this morning which clearly illustrates my frustration with the site but I don’t feel that would be in my best interest. However, I feel I can post a quote from it.

Ultimately, Performancing.com in its current iteration is a bottomless pit. Or an empty auditorium. I’ve been waiting for someone to bust my ass for lack of production or lack of enthusiasm but I’d pay to see anyone get enthused about this site now adays. Then I’d have to wonder what kind of shrooms they ate.

In my mind, Performancing would turn into an awesome site if there was a team of people writing for the domain. Each one of these people were so called experts are at least, in the know for a particular CMS/publishing platform of their choice. So, I’d fit the bill with WordPress, someone could do MovableType, someone could do Joomla, etc. Sure, it sounds like CMS Wire, but they do newsy posts. Our goal would be to help bloggers succeed using these publishing systems and doing this as a team. Think about the mini competitions we could have with one platform versus another. I think their would be endless content creation opportunities and the audience I think would love it. Top it with a forum, a podcast, maybe some screencasts, and wow, what a helluva resource for bloggers of all types. That’s what I would turn Performancing into if I had the cash and know how.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned from Performancing.com, especially regarding managing a site. Because the site has exchanged hands at points in the past, has cared more about content generation versus all other aspects of the domain, and no continuous maintenance, we now have a site with a huge six year archive, a bunch of spam user accounts, comments, and blog posts, not to mention stuff on the built in forums all of which make it difficult to do anything with the site. It’s one of those situations where I’d like to just reformat and start over but you can’t because the archive is the only saving grace of the domain.

I know they are currently in the migration phases to move from Drupal to WordPress and that will most likely solve half or more of the problems associated with the site, just as long as most of the crap is not migrated over as well.

It doesn’t matter how much you pay me to write on your site. If 90% of comments are junk, I have no idea if someone links to the post or not, I’m stuck with a platform that sucks, there is little to no way to build community or loyalty around the site, eventually the writer is going to burn out and wonder what the hell is he doing wasting his time going upstream rather than with the flow. I’ll no doubt miss the $1,000.00 a month in pay but being able to bust my ass and reap the rewards which is more than just cash coming in is worth more to me in the long run.